ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1671967
This article is part of the Research TopicHealth and Psychological Adaptations to Life Challenges and Stressful Conditions - Volume IIView all 11 articles
The response of inclusive schools to the needs of children exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universidad del Pais Vasco, Leioa, Spain
- 2Department of Basic Psychological Processes and their Development, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), San Sebastián, Spain
- 3Department of Social Psychology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), San Sebastián, Spain
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This research seeks to explore the bidirectional adaptation of the educational community in schools that take in children at risk and who have suffered ACE. On the one hand, it describes the psychological adjustment of children at risk to the school context. On the other hand, it reports on the school's response to the needs of these children. Three public primary schools characterized by social and school segregation participated in this study. Participants included 25 primary education professionals and 144 third-and fourth-year primary school children, from diverse cultural backgrounds. Data collection techniques consisted of participant observation, semi-structured interviews and focus groups. The analysis revealed the following five themes: (1) emotional instability of students; (2) the crisis of authority questions the place of the teacher; (3) difficulties in good teaching practices; (4) grouping and segregation of students; and (5) need for other material and human resources on the part of teachers. Findings suggest the need to develop comprehensive and systemic lines of research and intervention that take into account both the individual characteristics of children and the social factors that characterize schools. In addition, the fundamental role played by inclusive schools in addressing the rights of these most vulnerable children and ensuring their well-being is highlighted.
Keywords: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)1, children at risk2, emotional instability3, school segregation4, socio-emotional development5, inclusive schoo6
Received: 23 Jul 2025; Accepted: 17 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Corres-Medrano, Smith-Etxeberria and Fernández-Villanueva. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Irune Corres-Medrano, irune.corres@ehu.eus
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.